john6767

The link to the consultation is in the email that everyone already has, what am I missing?

We are at home tonight, central heating going like the clappers. Back to the boat tomorrow, perhaps an hour of central heating, but not going to light the fire.

Perhaps think about moving the boat by road initially until you have more confidence

Are you in the licensing site, not tgg HR e general CRT site. It is the same Omar’s you licence the boat and book bookable stuff etc

That’s interesting. In our case not anything like the number of sightings I would have expected; this year twice in the marina, and then four at various points on the system.

It is really only like that for the last hour or so on the approach to St Johns lock. Before that the river is much straighter and the bank in many places allow informal mooring on a field. The Thames seems different to other rivers in that unless it says otherwise or is obviously someone’s garden you can stop.

For context we are currently in the process of doing basically the Avon ring with a side venture into Birmingham. We have done it all many times before and we live in the area, and are needing to stay near home at the moment. When people ask about the (Warwickshire) Avon I would always say it is fabulous, and I am certainly reminded by that fact at the moment. Even more so than other places at the moment it is very quiet and there has been no problems mooring anywhere that we want. One big issue of the Avon ring is the number of locks, but one thing I noticed talking to a couple of hire boaters last month out of ABC in Worcester is that a good option is perhaps not to do the whole ring, but to concentrate on the “bottom” (in elevation) half of it. So from Droitwich what you could do is down the W&B to Worcester which will give a good taste of narrow canals, and then down the Severn to Tewkesbury. The Severn is a little boring, but is a good way of getting from A to B as it is fast. You could stop at Upton if there is space, but it is only a half day from Worcester to Tewkesbury so you do not need to stop on the Severn at all really. You can then enjoy the Avon, although you will at this point be going up the Avon which is hard work as the locks, particularly on the upper Avon above Evesham are very fierce going up. At this point you can treat Stratford as you destination and you could have 2 nights there, one on the river and one in the canal basin. Depending on timing you could go up the South Stratford canal part way. Then you retrace your route down the Avon to Tewkesbury to then up the Severn past Worcester and through one more river lock and onto the Droitwich canal, and back to base. You could obviously deviate from Tewkesbury down to Gloucester, but with the time you have available it don’t think if is a good use of time, and just more Severn, which could be very show coming back up if there is a good flow on at that time of year.

The mooring is easy, lots on ends of fields to moor on, but the car is a lot harder I would think (not that I have tried it). The obvious thing to do it look for where there is road access, and then see if you can both park and moor near there. places that come to mind Bablock Hythe, by Ferryman Inn, pub and caravan park so will need permission to park, 24 hour public mooring adjacent New Bridge, pub mooring, or pay for field moorings, either pub on on road, if anywhere, to park Tadpole Bridge, The Trout at Tadpole Bridge, bookable pub mooring, pub for parking, do a good Sunday lunch but of course not cheap! Radcot Bridge, pub or road for mooring, and lots of free field moorings Lechlade, pub is pay and display for parking, look for street parking in the village possibly, lots of payable field moorings

Yes they are quite good, and the one on the arm has a visitors book if I remember correctly, but in my opinion Ripon beats them for the ambiance 😀

That is what Biffa claim to do, but with what level of success I guess is the question. But then again how much of what you put in normal household waste recycling actually gets recycled anyway.

If we are doing best elsan on the system, then Ripon gets my vote, immaculate and complete with visitors book and tourist info.

We were at Foxton earlier in the year, July I think, there were a good few boats about, but that was the start of the Leicester Line/River Soar being closed at one point or other for much of the summer, we were intending to head for Birmingham via Fazeley and Fradley, but turned round at the bottom of Foxton and went back to Braunston, Napton (where we had started), and Kingswood to get to Birmingham. Personally Unless you only want to go as far as Foxton I would avoid the area for the moment and it is one lock failure after another, and I think there is one closed at the moment. As to the pub, a “posh eating pub” it certainly is not, we ate there and the food and service was rubbish. If the sun is shining it’s good for a drink in the garden, but that’s about it!

For me Shroppie every time, we have made that choice twice this year (there and back). The lock count is lower, as the T&M has that annoying situation of going up locks just to come straight back down. If you have not done Harecastle tunnel, that that is probably a reason to go that way though, but on the other and the Shroppie has the long lines of offside moorings. .

Other than if being slow going in the narrow channel against the flow, I doubt you will have any issues. Just watch for running aground if you have to pass another boat, you don’t need a deep draft to do that!

There is also a short piece at the end on the BBC midlands local news, which is on iPlayer now.

The speeches were on a zoom webinar, and I understand Facebook live, so the Facebook one should be available. The ITV Central news that has just been on had a good piece, well I would say that as the second interview was me! If you missed it ITV+1 at 7:45 or ITVX when it’s made available.

I would say something of the order of 50 is about right

I’ve just been interviewed by ITV news, I apologise in advance if they use it!

Rain now stopped and sun out for now

If anyone did not see it check out the 6pm ITV Central news, the lead item was on the Sunday event and the impact on the canals. There are people on it that many of you will know!

Just arrived, and moored in preferred location on Oozels St Loop, Main Line did look busy for the time of day.

If you didn’t know the trial was on you would probably have been planning on leaving Saturday if you were arriving today, there were few mooring spots over 2 days previously in the city centre. Perhaps CRT’s communication has got through this time!

We are coming into Birmingham in the morning, hopefully we will find somewhere. Surprised someone who arrived today is intending to be still there on Sunday, I was suspecting that most would not know about the mooring trial, have the signs been changed?

It is from an email address on the IWA domain if that is what you meant. Seems to clarify the logistics a bit!